Doxologies, Delirium and Discussion: Religion Chat Thread number 3

[nickelbabyhatcher]

Here we are!

Roll up and sign in!

Oldies welcome, newbies welcome, anyone welcome!

It's basically a "what happened in church/spiritual life/anything else you want to chat about that's vaguely related (or not) to churchy stuff.

we're becoming quite popular now, aren't we!

it's lovely - nice to talk about church etc without someone wading in and telling us god doesn't exist and we're fools....

Panda!!! where have you been?? Lovely to have you back.

Apart from all the discussion about hymns for weddings I had the most amazing experience in the night:-
I dreamt that I was one of a group of people watching the Archbishop of Canterbury standing alone in the middle of a small square. I went up to him and asked if he was alright and he said he was fine. Then I asked him whether he would like me to pray for him and he said that would be very nice. So I prayed for him and asked that God would bless him and that he would be able to bring some of the real meaning into all the royal shennanigans tomorrow.
Put in pious language: The Lord told me in a dream to pray for the Archbishop of Canterbury. How cool is that?

DO that is actually really really cool!! How privileged are you? :)

What are you all doing for the wedding? We're going round to a neighbours where a lot of neighbours are gathering to eat crap and watch it on their big screen TV then in the evening we're having a street party/BBQ thing, dh has got the big PA thing from church for putting the music through, hope all the street comes, all have been invited but we shall see! It should be a good giggle.

aww, DutchOma, that's really cool!

I don't know if I want to watch the wedding tomorrow because of the hymns, but I do want to hear all the other music, so I probably will.

nickel - on choosing "gude me.." as it was in Diana's funeral - I can see some logic. I chose "Dear Lord and Father of Mankind" for my wedding as it is one of my favourite hymns (I particularly like "forgive our foolish ways..."). I 've always known my father would like it at his funeral one day and we had it at my grandparents funerals. I wanted to have some happy memories associated with it too...

i know i can see the logic, but why not choose something that was played at their wedding? or another favourite hymn of hers?

I love Dear Lord and Father too, but I don't agree with it for a wedding, sorry. It's too harsh.
:(

Sorry to bring down the tone, but my Aunt and Uncle had Dear Lord and Father for their wedding and apparently everyone got the giggles at 'breathe through the heats of our desires..'

anway, it was a poem, and the author wrote it as a criticism of hymns and music in worship - he wanted peace and quiet, and felt that singing etc got in the way.

"
John Greenleaf Whittier was a Quaker, and the words were part of a poem extolling the virtues of silent contemplation over the excesses of singing and dancing! "

We chose hymns to get the message of Christianity across for relatives who may never darken the door of a church again until the next wedding/christening (rare) or more often now funeral.

Hello all. I don't know how interested you are in the Royal wedding (strictly republican household here apart from DD1 who would like to be a princess ) but one of our friends posted this on facebook and I thought I'd put it in here incase you want to pass it on to anyone who might find it helpful/be interested royal wedding service It's a basic guide through the liturgy explaining what the meaning is.

Oh dear Nickel, you'd have been very disappointed at the hymns we had at our wedding service. Most of the people there never step into a church other than for weddings or funerals so we chose hymns that most people would know because I thought it would sound dreadful if only a few people were singing.

Personally, as a Scot, I don't like Jerusalem.

W & K had the same three hymns as us in the same order too but it's nice to hear them so royally (boomboom) slated

One of my favourite bits was during the sermon
"Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world on fire"

I'm waiting for nickel's assesment of the music

I did watch in the end (thanks to Youtube which was a bit weird as it didn't have any commentary - was tempted to make up my own but not sure the DCs would have appreciated it).

I thought that the congregation had been told to sing in case they were on camera as they were all quite enthusiastic! How were your street parties etc?

I thought the address by the Bishop was very good - I liked the bit bronze quotes above too :).

I don't find Dear Lord and Father harsh at all - we wanted the first part of the service to be more contemplative (in thankfulness really - wanting to enter into marriage thoughtfully and gratefully) then the bit after the vows to be more joyful and uplifting (we had the choir singing "O sing joyfully" and ended with "Tell Out my Soul").

I really enjoyed the wedding.

Haven't been able to stay at the street party long due to pesky lungs, but enjoying listening to them all being merry out there. A bit. (and a bit fed up too.)

Dress was beautiful, she looked stunning I think. DD was transfixed. Bish was good, couldn't hear much as was round the neighbours who were all shouting 'get on with the boring bit' etc etc [chmm]

no, i didn't hear a lot either, got a ds clingon on my knee playing a very loud toy organ, cbeebies (though that isn't loud as the volume control is broken and no longer turns up) and a dd complaining about the noise of the wedding as she wants to watch cbeebies.

We saw very little of the wedding because we went to Legoland. Only saw what the dress was like this morning! We DID see the Legoland royal wedding scene, does that count? Spookily the queen was in yellow and the bride's dress was strapless :o

I need to know what those hymns are, then Jaffa!

you'd be amazed how many hymns people "know" without ever realising it.

The thing I thought was distasteful, was not that it was a hymn that might be used at a funeral (such as the Dear Lord and Father thing), but that they specifically chose it because it was Diana's Funeral hymn)

besides which, I have said several times - that's the reason you have to have a choir - so that if noone sings, it doesn't matter!

O Sing Joyfully is wonderful.
As is Tell out my Soul

Apart from the hymsn, the music was lovely.

I Was Glad sounded amazing for the entrance, the John Rutter was rather low! but lovely, and everything else was very nicely done.
I love Parry generally - his voices always sound like strings - amazing way with music.

Ah, we didn't have a choir, just a lot of friends and family, very few of whom go to church regularly. From memory, our hymns were Bind Us Together (DH's choice) and All Things Bright and Beautiful (my choice). I think there was probably a third but can't remember what it was. I like ATB&B as I tend to feel closest to God when I'm outside surrounded by beautiful scenery and the line about the purple headed mountain always makes me think of heather and where I grew up. We wanted hymns that we thought most people would know. I remember at my Gran's funeral the hymns were ones she had chosen and although she had loved them very few people knew them and so the singing wasn't as good as it could have been. Looking back, our choices were a bit unimaginative and if we were chosing now I think we'd go for something different.

I thought Kate looked beautiful yesterday and enjoyed what I saw of the service (was looking after the DSs at the same time as DH had escaped to B&Q). I like the music for Jerusalem, I just find the words grate on me a bit.

heehee
you're right, I don't approve

But, it doesn't matter, because they were your choices.
At our wedding, we chose what we loved, and at yours, you chose what you loved!
I can judge, but you can tell me to stick my nose out

I personally wouldn't expect most people to sing at a funeral, whether they know the hymns or not. I sing at funerals, but that's because that's how I worship. It means a lot to me.
The funerals that most stick out for proper singing were my old choirmaster, and 3 of people from my church - which we went to as a choir.
They were full of singing because it was expected - all 4 were funerals of people for whom singing was very important.
so only 4 funerals out of the many I've been to - all the others, people would just sing quietly or not at all.
I think that's what is to be expected, though.

You could always ask to choose hymns for your anniversary - I'm sure the music director wouldn't mind! :)

In fact, we're doing that at hte end of this month - it's our Readers' 60th anniversary, and we're doing all the music from their original wedding service. It was his wife (who is in the choir) that asked us to do that for them.

i meant Reader's
I don't know why the apostrophe went at the end.... that was odd
(i can't type though, so that's probably why - one hand works faster than the other!)

I thought the Rutter was absolutely wonderful and sounded as if we might be able to sing it. That might be utterly untrue, but it sounded like that.
Also I thought the descants were rather nice.
I totally agree on Jerusalem and on the other two really, although I don't mind them as hymns, just not for a wedding.
We had Through all the changing scenes of life, the Lord is my shepherd to Crimond and Oh praise ye the Lord.
As an anthem we had Bach's God liveth still (BWV 641). There is quite a funny story about that. We did this as an anthem in Amsterdam on the Sunday after I met dh (on the Dover Ostend ferry). He wrote to me as soon as he was back in Germany and just for something to write I told him about the Bach Chorale.
He said he would like to come as "he had never heard or SEEN a Bach Chorale".
I've never been able to find the English words to it. I have the music with a translation, but not one you can sing.